Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: General Battuta on January 19, 2014, 11:19:00 pm
-
If you're an American citizen and you have an ounce of self-respect but you're not literate or rich enough to read Scahill's Dirty Wars, the documentary the book spawned is now up on Netflix Instant.
It covers the return of assassination to American foreign policy and the move over the last thirteen years (the Bush and Obama administrations have not really differed in this respect) to make assassinations faster, easier, and more directly linked to the executive branch.
Along the way (well, going off the book, at least!) you'll get to see American soldiers shoot apart the wedding of a major pro-American Afghan luminary, follow Donald Rumsfeld's efforts to build his own intelligence organization that would lose the CIA's pesky insistence on 'real world facts', explore America's rejection of its best chance at a secure Somalia and our willingness to be jerked around by a mid-level dictator who played us for chumps, and track an American imam's journey from critical anti-Al-Qaeda speaker to death in a drone strike. The adventure never ends!
I expect this thread will **** itself within six posts, but assuming we can scrape together enough sensitivity to nuance and complexity to talk about why this ****ed-up system emerged and whether it's actually achieving anything, we could have a good time. Dirty Wars did more than almost any single other book to help me make sense of American foreign policy and the incredible, paralytic inertia driving it.
So - American? Want to understand why your country adopted the Tarkin Doctrine? Check it out.
e: You will get to hear about a foreign journalist who'd written negatively about cruise missile strikes (he correctly identified the 'made in America' stamps on the debris as American, blowing the American cover story) being arrested at the request of the American government and held in jail when even his own military dictatorship of a government felt it had no cause because Barack Obama personally telephoned the dictator of the country and requested that his detention continue. The beacon of the free world
-
....I know you too well for any of that to be hyperbole. I have no words.
There is information I must obtain.
-
Does it also explain why the Death Star project was really turned down? :D
-
I would recommend reading Steve Coll's Ghost Wars for the Hilarious High Jinks that lead to 9/11.
-
I would recommend reading Steve Coll's Ghost Wars for the Hilarious High Jinks that lead to 9/11.
The 9/11 Commission Report is also pretty solid. I don't know if Ghost Wars covers some of the same turf, but it always felt like twice the tragedy because all the information was right there and the hijackers were so patently incompetent in the lead-up to the attack.
-
I would recommend reading Steve Coll's Ghost Wars for the Hilarious High Jinks that lead to 9/11.
The 9/11 Commission Report is also pretty solid. I don't know if Ghost Wars covers some of the same turf, but it always felt like twice the tragedy because all the information was right there and the hijackers were so patently incompetent in the lead-up to the attack.
It mainly deals with the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the CIA's brilliantly short sighted intervention in said conflict and how it leads up into 9/11. I assume if you read Ghost Wars you would find significant parallels in Dirty Wars.
-
This seems right up the alley of what I'm studying at the moment in school, will definitely give it a watch. As long as we don't try and lump about five different factors that contributed to targeted assassinations being part of US foreign policy as just 'drones' and slander a perfectly competent weapons platform (when it's being used responsibly anyway).
-
war is what we are good at. i dont see why we are not taking over all the things.
-
because what would be the point
-
So, make the US a full blown HyperNeoAssyrian Empire?
-
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/00/PKsymbol.svg/500px-PKsymbol.svg.png)
-
I could really get behind a War on Scarrans.
-
the leather supplies would run dry in days though
-
You know, it's scary enough when Governments seem to adopt the concept that 'the ends justify the means', it's even worse when they adopt that position and it's not even true.
-
Hahaha, I'd forgotten how unbelievable some of this **** was. Storm a pro-American figure's house during a wedding party, kill his wife, two sons, his daughter and his new daughter-in-law, dig the bullets out of the corpses with knives, prevent them from being taken to hospitals.
-
Will take a break from working about this song about targeted killing to watch this doc about targeted killing.
-
Well I dunno about you guys but that left me with a profound feeling of bitterness WRT my country's inexcusably short sighted behavior!
-
I'm always looking for multilateral discussion on these things so it was good to find a fairly substantive review of the book. (http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/11/dirty-wars-the-world-is-a-battlefield/#.Ut371BAo7RY) The gist of it is that Scahill makes a one-sided and simplistic case about the broad efficacy of targeted killing, and that - most damningly - his treatment of Anwar al-Awlaki is selective.
But it seems like Scahill's individual case studies of mistaken attacks and their toxic aftereffects are generally solid, that his analysis of the horn of Africa is pretty decent, and that his expose on the botched raid in Gardez are all solid.
-
I definitely got the impression from the film that al-Awlaki became a major mover in the jihad business, so maybe that's something Scahill addressed when putting the movie version together? In any case, I think it's a little strange that the reviewer thinks the author should be obliged to present the benefits of these killing programs alongside their drawbacks. The core of the movie is an emotionally resonant story about how we turn normal people into terrorists. The ratio of terrorists to civilians killed in a given strike and whether that translates into tactical gains or not is sort of the opposite of what the movie is trying to be about I think. I recognize that the presentation is rather Michael Moore-ish in its one-sidedness and the manipulativeness of the imagery, but frankly, if you kill people's children (you being the US Government), you're gonna get images of people's children. You don't win hearts with spreadsheets*
As an aside, the piece they played at the end was pretty spot on—first time in a long time I've listened all the way through the credits of a movie. Kronos Quartet knows how to tune their chords.
*You can win hearts with pie charts.
-
*You can win hearts with pie.
Fixed that for you :3.
I am currently not able to view this documentary, although it actually is in line with things I already know (Learn even one line about the fire-bombing of north vietnamese villages and you tend to be very skeptical about US foreign policy *sigh*). However, it might be a good documentary to point people towards when a soul wonders why many people are so skeptical about the US.
-
i can use that next time i need to create a fascist dictatorship. there might be impaled corpses lining the streets, but my supporters will receive pie.
-
Now that I have Netflix again, I will definitely have to check this out sometime.
You mentioned a few things that caught my eye in particular, such as the American government doing things that may appear to be against America's best interests; drone strikes on our supposed allies and what-have-you. Assuming what you are saying is true, and I have no reason to believe otherwise at the moment, I can only imagine that the reason behind such actions is to prevent an end to hostilities. The reason for that? Well I'm sure a conspiracy theorist would make grandiose claims about a military industrial complex, and while there may be some truth to that, I cannot help but wonder what other motivations there were behind this...
-
No, that is not the reason behind the actions. Drone strikes are conducted because the policymakers genuinely believe they're an effective instrument to sanction key part of the enemy command structure.
-
I dunno if getting Osama is worth any election points, but being unwilling to break the law and kill a bunch of innocent people while trying to get Osama is probably worth negative election points.
-
Also Nakura you seem to think that these mistargeted attacks occur on purpose - but they're more of a systemic product of figuratively itchy trigger fingers and an aggressive operational tempo that inevitably leads to mistakes.
-
Also Nakura you seem to think that these mistargeted attacks occur on purpose - but they're more of a systemic product of figuratively itchy trigger fingers and an aggressive operational tempo that inevitably leads to mistakes.
and an expendable weapons platform.
-
In the case of drones, yeah, but some of these (like the Gardez incident) are carried out by SOF. Night raids in Afghanistan are apparently super duper common and often based on mixed intel (or, like Yemen write small, on people out and out gaming the system to sic the USA on local enemies).
-
Also Nakura you seem to think that these mistargeted attacks occur on purpose - but they're more of a systemic product of figuratively itchy trigger fingers and an aggressive operational tempo that inevitably leads to mistakes.
A lack of oversight is the only real problem I have with drone strikes. Though it's amazing that we're more than happy to blow people and buildings up with very little evidence, yet at the same time have some of the most restrictive rules of engagement imaginable for our ground forces.
-
Your opinion is incongruent with facts in two distinct respects. We have really loose ROE for SOF ground forces. Lack of oversight isn't the major problem with drone strikes: they're overseen by the top.
-
Your opinion is incongruent with facts in two distinct respects. We have really loose ROE for SOF ground forces. Lack of oversight isn't the major problem with drone strikes: they're overseen by the top.
Better to overkill than underkill, I suppose. Though if you're going to go that route, you might as well eliminate all unfriendly elements in the country, leaving only those who are vehemently dedicated to your cause. Not that this war on terror is one that should be fought primarily with bullets and bombs. No, we have to rebuild Afghan society, we have to win over the hearts and minds of the people, something that generally takes a generation or two.
-
The whole point of the empirical evidence gathered here, in the material discussed in this thread, is that overkill generates negative progress towards our strategic objective and breeds more problems than it solves.
-
The whole point of the empirical evidence gathered here, in the material discussed in this thread, is that overkill generates negative progress towards our strategic objective and breeds more problems than it solves.
Collateral damage is always going to be a part of these types of conflicts, as you have an enemy that blends in with the civilian population. Of this, I am certain you are aware. What we have to do is find a way to minimize civilian casualties as much as possible, and getting accurate data is the first step in doing that. From a technological standpoint, this issue will sort itself out in a decade or two (maybe sooner), since we're developing some really neat precision strike toys that will take care of enemies in urban environments with minimal to no civilian causalities. Right now we should focus on getting accurate data, I think we are in agreement there?
-
No upcoming 'precision strike toy' (what an apt phrase) will solve the structural issues that cause the problems described in Dirty Wars. Each nascent system will come with its own drawbacks and its own vast terrain of policy pitfalls and doctrinal concerns to navigate. The ability to selectively target may grow; the ability to know who to target, and to assess whether that sanction actually works towards strategic objectives, is going to lag far, far behind.
No ISR asset helped us make the right decision with the Islamic Courts. No long-loiter interdiction capability stopped us from being manipulated by Saleh. No satellite platform saved civilians at Gardez.
The dream of sanitized warfare has lived on since before World War II, carried by torchbearers as disparate as MacNamara and Tom Clancy. It's always twenty years out, always a capability we'll have in the next conflict. The reality we find, again and again, is that these enhanced tactical capabilities don't save us from strategic mistakes, that the most powerful determinants of success are human and institutional factors, and that a good set of linguists and historians achieve more than any number of Nth-generation low-footprint Rumsfeldwaffen.
-
The whole point of the empirical evidence gathered here, in the material discussed in this thread, is that overkill generates negative progress towards our strategic objective and breeds more problems than it solves.
Collateral damage is always going to be a part of these types of conflicts, as you have an enemy that blends in with the civilian population. Of this, I am certain you are aware. What we have to do is find a way to minimize civilian casualties as much as possible, and getting accurate data is the first step in doing that. From a technological standpoint, this issue will sort itself out in a decade or two (maybe sooner), since we're developing some really neat precision strike toys that will take care of enemies in urban environments with minimal to no civilian causalities. Right now we should focus on getting accurate data, I think we are in agreement there?
That's what they told us in Vietnam, and said they had in Iraq I.
-
Though if you're going to go that route, you might as well eliminate all unfriendly elements in the country
The more people you kill in a country, the more the remaining population becomes unfriendly...
-
I think Nakura's major problem is that he's trying to define all "unfriendly" elements in a country as static, unchanging based on other factors. As in, "Person A is an unfriendly element, while Person B is a friendly element", but failing to realize that killing Person A may very well make Person B unfriendly.
Hint: the reason the enemy blends into civilian populations is because a good chunk of them are pissed off civilians.
-
By far our best weapon is giving the civilian population internet access so that our cat memes can displace their extremist nutbag memes.
-
I think Nakura's major problem is that he's trying to define all "unfriendly" elements in a country as static, unchanging based on other factors. As in, "Person A is an unfriendly element, while Person B is a friendly element", but failing to realize that killing Person A may very well make Person B unfriendly.
Hint: the reason the enemy blends into civilian populations is because a good chunk of them are pissed off civilians.
That is a valid criticism of my world view. Most people don't put the higher ideals above all else, and as thus, are willing to cast aside lesser morals for the greater good, which is entirely subjective. I have not disagreed with Battuta taht we need to do everything we can to minimize targeting innocents or even allies. I suggested that we obtain better and more accurate information, but as Battuta pointed out, there is a structural problem at work here. Regardless of how accurate or inaccurate our information is, those in command will still have the final call and some have accused them of potentially making errors in judgement (ordering a strike with incorrect or incomplete data).
-
And what's important Nakura? What does the greater good look like?
EDIT: I know you say it's subjective, but how can you suggest any course of action for the greater good, while leaving it at subjective?
-
I think Nakura's major problem is that he's trying to define all "unfriendly" elements in a country as static, unchanging based on other factors. As in, "Person A is an unfriendly element, while Person B is a friendly element", but failing to realize that killing Person A may very well make Person B unfriendly.
Hint: the reason the enemy blends into civilian populations is because a good chunk of them are pissed off civilians.
That is a valid criticism of my world view. Most people don't put the higher ideals above all else, and as thus, are willing to cast aside lesser morals for the greater good, which is entirely subjective. I have not disagreed with Battuta taht we need to do everything we can to minimize targeting innocents or even allies. I suggested that we obtain better and more accurate information, but as Battuta pointed out, there is a structural problem at work here. Regardless of how accurate or inaccurate our information is, those in command will still have the final call and some have accused them of potentially making errors in judgement (ordering a strike with incorrect or incomplete data).
And how do you think that father who lost a son, the mother who lost a child or the child who lost all his relatives feel when you tell them that you really did everything you could to "minimize" casualities?
You'll be a f****** hero in that country I am sure.
Frankly, if you really want to win people over in a country... you will have to use nonlethal force and actually arrest people and make what happens to them afterwards as transparent as possible.
(Yes instant killing is easier ... the point is that it is also always counterproductive, if you are actually interested in what people think of you.)
Because seriously... if you had to live with the occasional neighbors house being the target of drone strikes, would you really care about the statistics of how safe or unsafe innocents are from them?
I mean... it really is like some kind of Orwellian Nightmare isn't it? .... except that it only happens "abroad" and "Big Brother" is not quite omnipotent and blows up houses - sometimes the wrong house - or even is tricked into blowing up the wrong house for other people's purposes.
-
I think Nakura's major problem is that he's trying to define all "unfriendly" elements in a country as static, unchanging based on other factors. As in, "Person A is an unfriendly element, while Person B is a friendly element", but failing to realize that killing Person A may very well make Person B unfriendly.
Hint: the reason the enemy blends into civilian populations is because a good chunk of them are pissed off civilians.
That is a valid criticism of my world view. Most people don't put the higher ideals above all else, and as thus, are willing to cast aside lesser morals for the greater good, which is entirely subjective. I have not disagreed with Battuta taht we need to do everything we can to minimize targeting innocents or even allies. I suggested that we obtain better and more accurate information, but as Battuta pointed out, there is a structural problem at work here. Regardless of how accurate or inaccurate our information is, those in command will still have the final call and some have accused them of potentially making errors in judgement (ordering a strike with incorrect or incomplete data).
And how do you think that father who lost a son, the mother who lost a child or the child who lost all his relatives feel when you tell them that you really did everything you could to "minimize" casualities?
You'll be a f****** hero in that country I am sure.
Frankly, if you really want to win people over in a country... you will have to use nonlethal force and actually arrest people and make what happens to them afterwards as transparent as possible.
(Yes instant killing is easier ... the point is that it is also always counterproductive, if you are actually interested in what people think of you.)
Because seriously... if you had to live with the occasional neighbors house being the target of drone strikes, would you really care about the statistics of how safe or unsafe innocents are from them?
I mean... it really is like some kind of Orwellian Nightmare isn't it? .... except that it only happens "abroad" and "Big Brother" is not quite omnipotent and blows up houses - sometimes the wrong house - or even is tricked into blowing up the wrong house for other people's purposes.
Hang on, you want to try and arrest people who have guns and bombs and grenades and RPGs?
Or how about someone wearing a suicide vest? There's plenty of those, they'll just blow themselves and everyone nearby apart when someone gets close.
-
That's right, these guys wear their suicide vests 24/7. In fact, the #1 cause of death among suspected militants isn't targeted killings, but hitting the wrong button when the alarm clock goes off :(
-
Hang on, you want to try and arrest people who have guns and bombs and grenades and RPGs?
Or how about someone wearing a suicide vest? There's plenty of those, they'll just blow themselves and everyone nearby apart when someone gets close.
SWAT forces can do that. They do that all the time. And if they die, they die as heroes. They knew the risks when they signed up.
Regardless, we are talking about airstrikes here. The US airstrike policy in Afghanistan has for the longest of times favored saving the lives over US soldiers over saving the lives of civilians or civilian property. If civilians died, they are considered "Acceptable casualties". Strangely enough, somehow the people who signed up for a lethal job are not considered acceptable casualties :blah:.
-
Hang on, you want to try and arrest people who have guns and bombs and grenades and RPGs?
Or how about someone wearing a suicide vest? There's plenty of those, they'll just blow themselves and everyone nearby apart when someone gets close.
SWAT forces can do that. They do that all the time. And if they die, they die as heroes. They knew the risks when they signed up.
Regardless, we are talking about airstrikes here. The US airstrike policy in Afghanistan has for the longest of times favored saving the lives over US soldiers over saving the lives of civilians or civilian property. If civilians died, they are considered "Acceptable casualties". Strangely enough, somehow the people who signed up for a lethal job are not considered acceptable casualties :blah:.
The terrorists would take full advantage of such restrictions. It would be playing right into their hands.
-
Hang on, you want to try and arrest people who have guns and bombs and grenades and RPGs?
Or how about someone wearing a suicide vest? There's plenty of those, they'll just blow themselves and everyone nearby apart when someone gets close.
SWAT forces can do that. They do that all the time. And if they die, they die as heroes. They knew the risks when they signed up.
Regardless, we are talking about airstrikes here. The US airstrike policy in Afghanistan has for the longest of times favored saving the lives over US soldiers over saving the lives of civilians or civilian property. If civilians died, they are considered "Acceptable casualties". Strangely enough, somehow the people who signed up for a lethal job are not considered acceptable casualties :blah:.
The terrorists would take full advantage of such restrictions. It would be playing right into their hands.
Are you ****ing serious? "Arresting terrorists would be playing right into their hands! Nevermind the fact that our current policies are actually turning innocent civilians into terrorists..."
-
Hang on, you want to try and arrest people who have guns and bombs and grenades and RPGs?
Or how about someone wearing a suicide vest? There's plenty of those, they'll just blow themselves and everyone nearby apart when someone gets close.
SWAT forces can do that. They do that all the time. And if they die, they die as heroes. They knew the risks when they signed up.
Regardless, we are talking about airstrikes here. The US airstrike policy in Afghanistan has for the longest of times favored saving the lives over US soldiers over saving the lives of civilians or civilian property. If civilians died, they are considered "Acceptable casualties". Strangely enough, somehow the people who signed up for a lethal job are not considered acceptable casualties :blah:.
The terrorists would take full advantage of such restrictions. It would be playing right into their hands.
Are you ****ing serious? "Arresting terrorists would be playing right into their hands! Nevermind the fact that our current policies are actually turning innocent civilians into terrorists..."
Just think about it. What would you do if you were a terrorist and you knew the soldiers would only engage you with non-lethal methods?
-
Hang on, you want to try and arrest people who have guns and bombs and grenades and RPGs?
Or how about someone wearing a suicide vest? There's plenty of those, they'll just blow themselves and everyone nearby apart when someone gets close.
SWAT forces can do that. They do that all the time. And if they die, they die as heroes. They knew the risks when they signed up.
Regardless, we are talking about airstrikes here. The US airstrike policy in Afghanistan has for the longest of times favored saving the lives over US soldiers over saving the lives of civilians or civilian property. If civilians died, they are considered "Acceptable casualties". Strangely enough, somehow the people who signed up for a lethal job are not considered acceptable casualties :blah:.
The terrorists would take full advantage of such restrictions. It would be playing right into their hands.
Are you ****ing serious? "Arresting terrorists would be playing right into their hands! Nevermind the fact that our current policies are actually turning innocent civilians into terrorists..."
Just think about it. What would you do if you were a terrorist and you knew the soldiers would only engage you with non-lethal methods?
Wonder where the moral high ground just went, for one thing...
-
Terrorism is, fundamentally, not a problem militaries are good at dealing with. It is a law enforcement issue, and should be dealt with on those terms.
However surgical your military is capable of being, using it to deal with terrorists is still like trying to get rats out of a building by setting it on fire.
-
It's all one big mess.
But we shouldn't have more respect for the lives of terrorists than our own soldiers.
-
Terrorism is, fundamentally, not a problem militaries are good at dealing with. It is a law enforcement issue, and should be dealt with on those terms.
However surgical your military is capable of being, using it to deal with terrorists is still like trying to get rats out of a building by setting it on fire.
I wonder if you could effectively model counterinsurgency as a signal detection problem. Like a legal system, it's all about balancing false positives and false negatives.
-
It's all one big mess.
But we shouldn't have more respect for the lives of terrorists than our own soldiers.
And the moment a single person who is not a terrorist dies, because you were focused on your soldiers lives (as opposed to protecting innocent lives), you possibly have just created more terrorists than you have "taken out" the whole year.
As said above... people still do not get it.
You either take the moral highground and fully well accept the casualities non lethal force would take ... or you do not, and from that moment on you are not going to make any progress at all. Rather you will turn into the very "devil" that those terrorists are constantly trying to paint you as.
If you "have to" (or rather "feel you have to") intervene with military force, then those are your options: Choose lethal force, with the always resulting collateral damage, and quickly become the very evil you are accused of being by those terrorists (at which point you are merely waging for waging wars sake, if you stop to think about it for a minute.) or accept that employing lethal force at all is most likely counter productive to achieving any kind of longterm peaceful solution.
-
It's all one big mess.
But we shouldn't have more respect for the lives of terrorists than our own soldiers.
And the moment a single person who is not a terrorist dies, because you were focused on your soldiers lives (as opposed to protecting innocent lives), you possibly have just created more terrorists than you have "taken out" the whole year.
As said above... people still do not get it.
You either take the moral highground and fully well accept the casualities non lethal force would take ... or you do not, and from that moment on you are not going to make any progress at all. Rather you will turn into the very "devil" that those terrorists are constantly trying to paint you as.
Those are your options: Become the evil you are accused of being or accepting that there is more to actually fighting terrorism than killing people.
I feel skeptical about this.
We've got foreign insurgents and mercenaries that have nothing to do with the population of the country, we've got religious fanatics, people can be turned just because someone thumps the Quran and spouts some garbage about infidels and paradise. There were terrorists before there were soldiers in the country.
-
It's all one big mess.
But we shouldn't have more respect for the lives of terrorists than our own soldiers.
And the moment a single person who is not a terrorist dies, because you were focused on your soldiers lives (as opposed to protecting innocent lives), you possibly have just created more terrorists than you have "taken out" the whole year.
As said above... people still do not get it.
You either take the moral highground and fully well accept the casualities non lethal force would take ... or you do not, and from that moment on you are not going to make any progress at all. Rather you will turn into the very "devil" that those terrorists are constantly trying to paint you as.
Those are your options: Become the evil you are accused of being or accepting that there is more to actually fighting terrorism than killing people.
I feel skeptical about this.
We've got foreign insurgents and mercenaries that have nothing to do with the population of the country, we've got religious fanatics, people can be turned just because someone thumps the Quran and spouts some garbage about infidels. There were terrorists before there were soldiers in the country.
The point that it always comes back to is that our military, when employing lethal force, will always, always, cause a number of innocent bystanders to die.
That fact pretty much ruins anything you may achieve by killing any number of bad guys. If anything, you are already breeding the next generation full of enough resentment and feelings of revenge to become suicide bombers themselves.
Losing loved ones and family members to accidential drone strikes (oups, huh?) and death squad style raids appears to have that effect on people, you know?
The sad truth is that this idiocy is likely fueled by political necessity, as not doing anything after 9/11 would have been political suicide on the home front as would be policies leading to a huge amount of soldier deaths.
So this leaves us with the current policy, that satisfied voters at home, but on the other hand pretty much inevitably ensures that the "war on terror" will continue for generations to come, with growing numbers of terrorists, if anything.
-
Does anyone know how likely this is to breed terrorists? As opposed to the other ways? How many terrorists exist because someone they cared about became "collateral damage"?
-
The sad truth is that this idiocy is likely fueled by political necessity, as not doing anything after 9/11 would have been political suicide on the home front as would be policies leading to a huge amount of soldier deaths.
So this leaves us with the current policy, that satisfied voters at home, but on the other hand pretty much inevitably ensures that the "war on terror" will continue for generations to come, with growing numbers of terrorists, if anything.
Ah, you've wrote some more.
I saw that personally as necessity full stop. You can't just watch thousands of innocents die and not take action against it, and leave yourself open to a repeat.
It would however be a very cruel joke if it turns out action would just make it worse no matter what you do.
-
The sad truth is that this idiocy is likely fueled by political necessity, as not doing anything after 9/11 would have been political suicide on the home front as would be policies leading to a huge amount of soldier deaths.
So this leaves us with the current policy, that satisfied voters at home, but on the other hand pretty much inevitably ensures that the "war on terror" will continue for generations to come, with growing numbers of terrorists, if anything.
Ah, you've wrote some more.
I saw that personally as necessity full stop. You can't just watch thousands of innocents die and not take action against it, and leave yourself open to a repeat.
It would however be a very cruel joke if it turns out action would just make it worse no matter what you do.
Considering the hilarious/sad amount of mistakes on the side of intelligence agencies that only made it possibly for this rather incompetent group of plane hijackers to pull of 9/11 ....... I dunno, I could think of a number of things "to do" to prevent such strikes in the future ... all of them more effective than anything that involves killing innocent bystanders abroad, which yeah, likely does make matters much worse than before.
/shrugs.
Of course... giving the public a bad guy that you can retaliate against is politically much more effective "on the home front" than admitting up that your intelligence agencies well uh .... screwed up big time.
-
Regardless, we are talking about airstrikes here. The US airstrike policy in Afghanistan has for the longest of times favored saving the lives over US soldiers over saving the lives of civilians or civilian property. If civilians died, they are considered "Acceptable casualties". Strangely enough, somehow the people who signed up for a lethal job are not considered acceptable casualties :blah:.
I think this needs a little bit more attention. Current US policy considers that the life of a United States soldier is more important than the life of a civilian in theater. While that looks good for the soldier in theory, it also has the rather questionable side-effect of ensuring that soldiers are necessary to remain in theater, because said theater remains dangerous.
When the United States government finally bites the bullet and realizes that a soldier's life in theater is not inherently more precious than the civilian's that live there, and takes action in a direction to show that, there may just be some progress to be made. Do note, that while this is a personal opinion on a proper course of action, it's also my opinion as a soldier in the United States Army.
As an example, while rules of engagement vary based on location slightly, training in dealing with civilians that get too close is fairly standard. In basic, again in advanced training, and again before deploying, we're endlessly drilled in the "Five Ss". In order:
Shout
Show
Shove
Shoot (to warn)
Shoot (to wound/kill)
Shout is fairly self-explanatory. Show is the act of brandishing your weapon to indicate that you both have one, and are willing to use it. Shove is to physically remove the civilian from your area (making sure to keep weapon away from grabbing range). In large part, the second step is skippable if there's little time, and it's taught that way. As such, normal training for the first three steps consists of yelling at anyone who gets to close, and then shoving them out of the way.
The final two steps are frequently taught as one step. While technically a soldier is not (in general) supposed to discharge his of her weapon without a display of intent to harm from the civilian, the criteria for "intent to harm" is ill-defined, and deliberately so. If a civilian postures in an aggressive manner while any sort of weapon is present, ready and raised or not, it qualifies. If a civilian repeatedly attempts to close, even without a weapon it can be considered intent. There are a number of other criteria for what constitutes intent (also obviously including firing, or brandishing a readied weapon, of physically assaulting another soldier). Shooting to warn is generally ignored in favor of shooting to wound/kill if intent is demonstrated, both because it tends to invite return fire even if the situation is still able to be defused, and because the prospective combatant doesn't get a chance to shoot back if they're already dead.
It's much the same deal with vehicles at checkpoints, minus the middle step (shove). If a vehicle does not follow instructions completely, first shout (usually with loudspeaker, and at a fair distance. We were taught 300 meters), brandish your weapon, shoot to warn/wound/kill. Generally shooting to warn is ignored again. When trying to disable a vehicle, we are specifically taught to aim for the driver, because it is the easiest part of the vehicle to disable.
That's the universal teaching standard for deployment. It's aggressive, does very little to defuse actual belligerence before the point of violence, and incites belligerence amongst otherwise peaceful groups that happen to simply get to close or make a soldier nervous.
That method of thinking that a soldier's life comes before any other factor in the field contributes significantly to the wartime culture of shoot-first, identify-later that directly leads to so many civilian deaths. It's actually bad enough that my MOS, Civil Affairs, spends a depressing amount of its pre-deployment readiness training learning how to deal with wrongful death compensation and relations repair. It's a problem.
-
The sad truth is that this idiocy is likely fueled by political necessity, as not doing anything after 9/11 would have been political suicide on the home front as would be policies leading to a huge amount of soldier deaths.
So this leaves us with the current policy, that satisfied voters at home, but on the other hand pretty much inevitably ensures that the "war on terror" will continue for generations to come, with growing numbers of terrorists, if anything.
Ah, you've wrote some more.
I saw that personally as necessity full stop. You can't just watch thousands of innocents die and not take action against it, and leave yourself open to a repeat.
It would however be a very cruel joke if it turns out action would just make it worse no matter what you do.
Considering the hilarious/sad amount of mistakes on the side of intelligence agencies that only made it possibly for this rather incompetent group of plane hijackers to pull of 9/11 ....... I dunno, I could think of a number of things "to do" to prevent such strikes in the future ... all of them more effective than anything that involves killing innocent bystanders abroad, which yeah, likely does make matters much worse than before.
/shrugs.
Of course... giving the public a bad guy that you can retaliate against is politically much more effective "on the home front" than admitting up that your intelligence agencies well uh .... screwed up big time.
I remember being under the impression at the time that it was a simple matter that there were some terrorist training camps in Afghanistan that trained these men, and it was a simple matter of putting these camps out of business and that would be that.
But the Taliban sided with the terrorists. So we needed to put them out of business as well, and then that would be that. (I thought there should have been a show of force first before military action to make the Taliban back down and step aside.)
But it just carried on escalating, more and more enemies coming out of the woodwork... :sigh:
-
I remember being under the impression at the time that it was a simple matter that there were some terrorist training camps in Afghanistan that trained these men, and it was a simple matter of putting these camps out of business and that would be that.
To simplify it further: There was a threat to civilian lives.
Everyone agrees upon disarming a threat on civilian lives and will put resources into that.
Due to the US policy, they became a threat to civilian lives.
Everyone agrees upon disarming a threat on civilian lives and will put resources into that.
Rinse and repeat.
<Snip>
That's an very excellent response. Especially since I just talked about you as if you were an expendable resource o_o.
-
And the moment a single person who is not a terrorist dies, because you were focused on your soldiers lives (as opposed to protecting innocent lives), you possibly have just created more terrorists than you have "taken out" the whole year.
You either take the moral highground and fully well accept the casualities non lethal force would take ... or you do not, and from that moment on you are not going to make any progress at all. Rather you will turn into the very "devil" that those terrorists are constantly trying to paint you as.
I cannot agree with the above.
Moral highground is using non-lethal force, even if it kills you?
No, that is stupidity.
When you are engaged in a life-or-death struggle, there is only survival. Anything else is irrelevant.
If (a big if) you can capture the oponentalivewihout too big of a risk to your own life, do it.
If not...well, is his life more worth than yours? Or Bobs?
-
@ Scotty
That is actually quite disturbing. Soldiers could very easily look like a bunch of trigger-happy thugs following that doctrine.
I remember being under the impression at the time that it was a simple matter that there were some terrorist training camps in Afghanistan that trained these men, and it was a simple matter of putting these camps out of business and that would be that.
To simplify it further: There was a threat to civilian lives.
Everyone agrees upon disarming a threat on civilian lives and will put resources into that.
Due to the US policy, they became a threat to civilian lives.
Everyone agrees upon disarming a threat on civilian lives and will put resources into that.
Rinse and repeat.
Oh, it's getting depressing... :sigh:
War used to be so simple. You see an enemy, you destroy him. Keep doing that until there are no enemies left.
-
Well that Battuta now deleted in-the-wrong-place-post at least lightened my mood a bit.
-
War used to be so simple. You see an enemy, you destroy him. Keep doing that until there are no enemies left.
That's not really how wars work. Wars are not about destroying an enemy, it's won by eliminating it's means to fight back (and then enforce a good peace resolution). For example, Germany's war machine was powered by it's rather massive industrial capacity. Germany lost because they lost the resources to power that industrial capacity, and the industrial capicity itself was bombed to smithereens by a very effective strategic bombing campaign (in which tons of civilians died because they worked in those industries - The scary part about WW2 is that it was fought on such a large scale that humans themselves became resources). You could, off-course, entirely destroy them, but this is disfavorable because entirely destroying something is rather overkill. And you can't afford that.
What powers the Taliban? Massive amounts of money earned by illegal drug trade, and it's manpower is provided by hatred or fear for the western world in general and the US in particular. How do we deal with that?
-
War has in fact always been hellishly complex - even World War II, the poster-child just war, was full of blurry moral lines and terrific atrocities on both sides. The perception of war as a simple binary based on direct attrition of the enemy's warfighters is a myth used to keep war palatable as an instrument of policy.
e: It's kind of unclear whether strategic bombing of Germany did much to hamper their industry. In some specific cases it seems like a decisive yes, but in others it's very difficult to be certain.
-
War used to be so simple. You see an enemy, you destroy him. Keep doing that until there are no enemies left.
What powers the Taliban? Massive amounts of money earned by illegal drug trade, and it's manpower is provided by hatred or fear for the western world in general and the US in particular. How do we deal with that?
And that again fell into the problem of "morals". Because if we torch the drugs, people are out of a job. I remember the question of torching the drugs came up quite early.
-
e: It's kind of unclear whether strategic bombing of Germany did much to hamper their industry. In some specific cases it seems like a decisive yes, but in others it's very difficult to be certain.
Fair enough. I also overlooked an important point in WW2: Most of the battles (Africa, Eastern Front) were lost because of problems with/destruction of supply lines (leaving the germans without weapons, food, or ammunition), not by destroying the means of production outright. Still, I think my main point remains: It's about eleminiating the other's capability of fighting back.
And that again fell into the problem of "morals". Because if we torch the drugs, people are out of a job. I remember the question of torching the drugs came up quite early.
We don't have to torch the drugs. We need to ensure that drugs are no longer a viable income for the Taliban. There's other ways of achieving that. e: Keep in mind that one of the goals here is to reduce hatred against the US to ensure that the Taliban are left without new recruits. Destruction will not work.
-
We don't have to torch the drugs. We need to ensure that drugs are no longer a viable income for the Taliban. There's other ways of achieving that. e: Keep in mind that one of the goals here is to reduce hatred against the US to ensure that the Taliban are left without new recruits. Destruction will not work.
I don't know how you'd do that. Especially with the sheer scale of Afghanistan's drug production.
-
As it so happen, the US doesn't really torch drugs in Afghanistan. One of the team sergeants in my unit worked closely with brigade-level support in Kandahar province, and the general procedure for burning poppy crops (as of December 2012, obviously could have changed) went something like this:
US announces to governor of province that they've identified and are going to burn a poppy field. Since we're trying to keep relations fairly decent with politicians, if not the actual populous, we run it by the governor for approval first.
Governor agrees to approve the burning, but urges US forces to wait for a period of one week or so.
Governor alerts owner of the field that the Americans are coming, harvest it now.
Farmers have a week or so to harvest the field.
Americans burn the now-spent field, conveniently clearing it to be used again and doing a good deal of the actual effort in readying it for the next cycle.
Famers replant poppy field.
End result: The United States Army is in many ways an integral part of the heroin industry in Afghanistan by providing free labor.
Isn't the world a grand place?
EDIT: The prevailing attitude among the members of my unit who have actually been on deployment as civil affairs soldiers (and one as infantry) leans unanimously on the side of "We shouldn't be there". These are the people who get schools built; who work closely with governors, elders, and imams; who settle territorial disputes; who console grieving widows when their husbands are accidentally killed by drone strikes or soldiers. My company is made up of 18 people, and I'm one of three that haven't been in Iraq or Afghanistan for at least two years and three deployments. The boots on the ground that actually deal with this **** think it's stupid, too.
-
I don't know how you'd do that. Especially with the sheer scale of Afghanistan's drug production.
It's quite simple really: Stop people from buying heroïn from the Afghans. Most of the heroïn in Afghanistan goes to the USA, for one. If the USA would do a better job at actually tending their own drug problem (instead of declaring war on it), or removed the legislation that prevents the US populace of actually competing with Afghanistan, that would work. Heck, they could legalize the whole thing, subsidize it, and get high import tarifs on the import! It's what the US and EU do all the time with agriculture, and it ensures that sub-saharan Africa can't develop proper agriculture because farmers there keep getting outcompeted by basically free food.
-
I don't know how you'd do that. Especially with the sheer scale of Afghanistan's drug production.
It's quite simple really: Stop people from buying heroïn from the Afghans. Most of the heroïn in Afghanistan goes to the USA, for one. If the USA would do a better job at actually tending their own drug problem (instead of declaring war on it), or removed the legislation that prevents the US populace of actually competing with Afghanistan, that would work. Heck, they could legalize the whole thing, subsidize it, and get high import tarifs on the import! It's what the US and EU do all the time with agriculture, and it ensures that sub-saharan Africa can't develop proper agriculture because farmers there keep getting outcompeted by basically free food.
You've stepped into an area I know little about here, so I can't really judge whether such a thing would work or not. Anyway, it's been a nice chat.
-
i kinda wish we would switch over to a world domination policy. im tired of setting up puppet governments that hate us.
-
I don't know how you'd do that. Especially with the sheer scale of Afghanistan's drug production.
It's quite simple really: Stop people from buying heroïn from the Afghans. Most of the heroïn in Afghanistan goes to the USA, for one. If the USA would do a better job at actually tending their own drug problem (instead of declaring war on it), or removed the legislation that prevents the US populace of actually competing with Afghanistan, that would work. Heck, they could legalize the whole thing, subsidize it, and get high import tarifs on the import! It's what the US and EU do all the time with agriculture, and it ensures that sub-saharan Africa can't develop proper agriculture because farmers there keep getting outcompeted by basically free food.
As someone who is working with young people every day ... let me just tell you right here, that you have no idea what you are talking about.
You could make a case of "responsible adults" and "responsible use" all you want ... but considering how many problems our teenagers already have, how little constraint they show, and how utterly unprepared they are for substances that can cause severe addiction with just a few uses... I shudder to think about how a folly like legalizing hard drugs would impact teenager culture, schools and in consequence, the longterm future of the country.
Substances like heroine or Crystal Meth and the way the hijack the brain just can not be compared to currently legal drugs like alcohol.
You legalize them and make availability go through the roof while making price plumet at the same time and you pretty much create a nationwide drug addicted generation from hell.
Responsible parenting has a good chance of keeping your children away from illegal drugs, but legal ones? Phat chance with peer pressure and everyone else doing them. Just look at alcohol. Everyone tries that.
If you legalize hard drugs you pretty much guarantee that almost every child will try one of them at least once ... and you know, with some of that stuff ... once is enough to completely destroy a life.
How about we just shoot ourselves and be done with it? Problem solved as well, right? LOL.
i kinda wish we would switch over to a world domination policy. im tired of setting up puppet governments that hate us.
Making the rest of the world hate you would be better? ;)
-
Okay! Give them soft drugs so there's no reason to try hard ones! Anything to lower demand :P. The Dutch have consistently managed to lower heroïn consumption over the past years, so why can't the Americans?
-
Considering that the Dutch live in different political circumstances, have different widespread views about individualism (this is more because the United States [note: not Americans. I bet Canada wouldn't appreciate it] is weird), and have hugely less area in which to both grow, distribute, hide, etc. large quantities of illicit drugs, I'm not sure that "Population A did it, so Population B must be capable" really fits the situation.
Supply and demand works a little like that. In the Netherlands, there are 16 million (approximate) people living in an area the size of Maryland. Maryland is a very small state. When you fit 300 million people (again approximate) into 3.8 million square miles, enforcement becomes something of a different problem.
-
Fair enough.